The Calling of the Grave

Chapter 17

Next morning I woke early and padded downstairs in the cool and quiet house while Sophie slept. I made myself a cup of tea as the sky gradually lightened, thinking about the past twenty-four hours. Normally I'd have turned on the radio to listen to the news, or gone online. But I didn't want to disturb Sophie and the house didn't have Wi-Fi. Instead I sipped my scalding tea at the kitchen table and watched the day slowly begin.

The morning chorus of birdsong reminded me of the owl. Pulling on my coat and boots, I went outside. The fog had lifted, although there was still an early haze, part drizzle, part mist. It frosted the branches of the apple trees, beading the cobwebs with quicksilver as I crossed the wet grass.

The sitting-room window had a dusty smeared mark where the owl had flown into it, but the only other sign of the bird was a few delicate pale feathers on the floor of the kiln. They could have been dislodged by the impact, although there was another, less happy explanation. There was no shortage of foxes around here. With the kiln door left open the injured predator could easily have become prey.

I wandered around the kiln. The scaffolding and props wedged against the walls had been here so long they might almost have grown out of the structure. Some sections of brickwork had been repointed with fresh mortar years ago, or even decades by the look of things. But most of it had been left to crumble away, and I guessed that the loose brick where Sophie kept her key was only one of many. Renovating the kiln, let alone getting it working again as she hoped, would be a big and expensive job.

She would have to sell a lot of pots.

Still, she was obviously talented. The crockery, bowls and vases stacked on the shelves were all simple yet striking designs. I ran my hand across the mound of hard clay on the workbench. It was made up of unused scraps that Sophie had slapped together and left to dry, but even that could have been an abstract piece of art.

I gave it a pat and went back into the house.

Sophie still wasn't up, which was good: she needed the rest. I was hungry and debated making breakfast but decided to wait for her. I was only a guest and wasn't sure how she'd feel about my making myself at home.

It was late before I heard her moving about upstairs. By the time she came down I'd put the kettle on and had a mug of tea waiting.

'Morning,' I said, handing her the mug. 'I wasn't sure if you were a tea or coffee person first thing.'

She looked bleary-eyed and a little self-conscious. She was wearing an oversized sweater over her jeans, hair pulled back and still damp from the shower. 'Tea's great. I save my real caffeine fix till I'm working. Did you sleep well?'

'Fine,' I lied. 'How are you feeling?'

'My cheek's still sore, but other than that I'm OK.'

'Can you remember anything yet about what happened?'

'What? Oh… no, still blank.' She went to the fridge. 'How about the owl? Is it still there?'

'No, I checked earlier. It's gone.'

She grinned. 'See? I told you it'd be all right in the kiln.'

I didn't mention the feathers on the kiln floor. If Sophie wanted a happy ending I wasn't going to spoil it for her.

'No bread for toast, I'm afraid, but I can offer you bacon and eggs,' she said, opening the fridge. 'Scrambled all right?'

I said it was. 'I thought I'd set off back before lunch,' I told her, as she cracked the eggs into a bowl.

She paused, then continued beating the eggs. 'You're leaving?'

'I might as well. The police'll have to relaunch the search for the Bennett twins now Monk's been digging on the moor.'

I was surprised they hadn't contacted us already. Even if they hadn't found Monk after our sighting the day before, I'd have expected someone to have been in touch to take our statements.

'I suppose so,' Sophie said. 'Not as if there's anything keeping you here, is there?'

She had her back to me. The frying pan clattered on the range. The silence stretched and grew heavy.

'I can stay longer. If you're bothered about being here by yourself, I mean.'

'Why, just because someone attacked me?' She slapped rashers of bacon into the pan, the hot fat setting up an angry hissing. 'I expect I'll get used to the idea. I don't have much choice, do I?'

'It was probably just a burglary that went wrong, like the police said.'

'Well, that makes me feel much better, doesn't it?' She stabbed a fork into the bacon and flipped it over as though it were to blame. 'I used to feel safe here. Even though it was the middle of nowhere, I never once felt threatened like I did living in a city. But that's my problem, not yours.'

'Look, I know how you must feel-'

'No you don't.'

I hesitated. This wasn't something I'd planned to go into, but I knew that if Sophie wasn't careful the assault could become a trauma she'd never recover from.

'Actually, I do. I was stabbed after a case the other year.'

She turned to look at me. 'You're not serious?'

So I told her about the events on Runa, and how Grace Strachan had turned up on my doorstep months later, returning from the dead to plunge a knife into me.

'And they never caught her?' Sophie asked, her eyes wide. 'She's still out there?'

'Somewhere. The police think she left the country soon afterwards. She and her brother were rich, so she probably had access to bank accounts no one knows about. Chances are she's in South America or somewhere by now.'

'That's awful!'

I shrugged. 'Looking on the bright side, she probably thinks I'm dead. So there's no reason for her to try again.'

I felt a superstitious unease as soon as I'd spoken. Don't tempt providence.

Sophie had moved the pan from the heat. She looked down at it, troubled. 'I'd no idea. And now I've dragged you into all this.'

'You didn't drag me into anything. And the reason I'm telling you this is because everything points to your attack being a one-off. Whoever did it can't have really wanted to hurt you, or… Well, you'd have got more than a fractured cheek.'

'I suppose.' She looked thoughtful, but there was still a shadow in her eyes. Abruptly, it was gone. She turned the heat back up under the pan and gave me a mischievous grin. 'Anyway, let's have breakfast. Then before you go you can show me your scar.'

But her good mood didn't last. She grew distracted again, pushing the food around listlessly on her plate. I offered to help with the dishes, but she declined. I got the impression she wanted some time to herself, so I left her in the kitchen and went to shower and pack my things.

I wondered if it was only now dawning on her that she wouldn't be part of any search operation this time round. For whatever reason, finding Zoe and Lindsey Bennett's graves had become a personal crusade, but Sophie wasn't a BIA any more. Her involvement had effectively ended the moment we'd found the holes left by Monk at Black Tor. Now the police would take over and she'd be nothing more than an onlooker.

Letting go was never easy.

I took my bag downstairs. The radio was playing when I went into the kitchen. Sophie was standing by the sink, her hands motionless in the water.

'Is there anything-' I began.

'Shh!' She silenced me with a quick shake of her head. For the first time I paid attention to what was being said on the radio.

'… police haven't released the victim's identity, although they confirm the death is being treated as suspicious. In other news. ..'

Sophie's face was white. 'Did you hear?'

'Only the last part.'

'There's been a murder. They haven't said who it is, but it's in Torbay. Near Sharkham Point. Isn't that…'

I nodded, realizing I wouldn't be leaving yet after all.

That was where Wainwright lived.